Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
IZZET KERIBAR ©
These mosques and palaces dominate the landscape and skyline of the city, but there are
other quintessentially Ottoman buildings: the hamam and the Ottoman timber house.
Hamams were usually built as part of a külliye, and provided an important point of social
contact as well as facilities for ablutions. Architecturally significant hamams include the
Wealthy Ottomans and foreign diplomats built many yalıs (waterside timber mansions)
along the shores of the
Bosphorus
; city equivalents were sometimes set in a garden but
were usually part of a crowded, urban streetscape. Unfortunately, not too many of these
houses survive, a result of the fires that regularly raced through the Ottoman city.
THE GREAT SINAN
None of today's star architects come close to having the influence over a city that Mimar Koca Sinan
had over Constantinople during his 50-year career.
Born in 1497, Sinan was a recruit to the devşirme, the annual intake of Christian youths into the jan-
izaries. He became a Muslim (as all such recruits did) and eventually took up a post as a military en-
gineer in the corps. Süleyman the Magnificent appointed him the chief of the imperial architects in
1538.
Sinan designed a total of 321 buildings, 85 of which are still standing in İstanbul. He died in 1588
and is buried in a selfdesigned türbe (tomb) located in one of the corners of the Süleymaniye
Mosque, the building that many believe to be his greatest work.
